The culmination of this week's readings in the Living Jerusalem Project focused on the writings of Dr. Salim Tamari. It seems that his studies have merged two very useful ideals that look at the sociological relationships of peoples and cultures and how this affects political change. For Israel and the Palestinian subunits, knowledge on this subject is particularly useful in hopes of coming to a stable resolution.
Anyways, on to the readings! Of the possible articles, I chose "Lepers, Lunatics, and Saints" and the analysis of Ishaq al-Shami. Sadly, I could not find a link to the article on music's influence in the region so if someone else more observant than myself could send me a link then that would be much appreciated. But I digress... "Lepers, Lunatics, and Saints" instantly drew me in with its specific references to the leper community. This has been the first instance in which the influence of disease has been covered all quarter, which is surprising considering the Ottoman Empire's rich medical history. Also I find that this is something often overlooked when considering any sort of relgious or cultural conflict as it affects every human being, which could act as common ground. I was even more taken aback when Dr. Tamari stated that the lepers were separated between Jews and Arabs. This reminded me of Joseph's solution which outlined a step based on "Confidence Building" where the Palestinian and Israeli cultures should work together on smaller problems like health and medicine in order to share an understanding of basic human rights.
Dr. Tamari goes on to list the many cultural movements that have taken place within Israel/Palestine. Nativism has preceded cultural nationalism by surfacing the innate sense of belonging that humans have, specifically towards their ancestral roots. This makes complete sense by the fact that as peoples basic needs (ie. water, food, shelter, safety) are pressured, they tend to become more animalistic which brings out instincts and other innate attributes that they were born with. In the case of Jewish culture, the idea of Zionism began decades it was implemented in 1948, but the Holocaust's harsh persecution surfaced the people's innate need for belonging and safety which expedited the Zionist movement. Of course, this new external pressure of the Jewish culture against the Arabs constituted the perfect layout for a sociological counter-movement of Canaanism. And so by pressuring both cultures, no problem has been solved, but rather more social divides have been created.
It was especially interesting to learn in the analysis of Ishaq al-Shami that Jews and Arabs were not the only populations being divided by this conflict. Instead, there were also two subgroups that emerged within Judaism between "non-Ottoman Jews and 'native Israelites'". I would think that the native Israelites would be more sympathetic towards the Palestinian community. I am also not sure if the native Israelites make up a larger percentage of Israelis than Zionist immigrants but if they do then why is it that Israel appears so hostile to Palestinians?
A few more questions of which I would like to ask Dr. Salim Tamari in the videoconference are as follows: 1. Has sacred geography played an important role in the Zionist movement? 2. How has social media (ie. facebook, Twitter, cell phones) influenced the Israeli/Palestinian conrflict? 3. How does the average Palestinian (Israeli) differ from American images of Palestinians (Israelis)?
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